Independent business blogs are blogs that aren’t supported by an organization like a magazine, newspaper, company, or business school. Those people provide lots of great content, but they don’t need any additional exposure. In this post, every week, I bring you posts of quality from excellent bloggers that don’t get as much publicity.

This week, I’m pointing you to posts by Ken Downer, Steve Keating, Kate Nasser, LaRaeQuy, and Linda Fisher Thornton.

From Ken Downer: Big Hammer or Small Blade? What it Really Takes to Achieve Your Goals

“We are continually bombarded by messages that to cater to, and encourage, our short attention span. There is no shortage of ‘life hacks,’ quick-fix remedies, and promises of miraculous overnight success.  Like a blow from Thor’s mighty hammer, we’re led to expect quick resolution to our problems, and rapid attainment of our goals. But something I saw recently reminded me that most of that is not helpful.  When it comes to achieving your goals, there is a better approach you can employ. This may be best explained using an oddly shaped chunk of apple tree.”

From Steve Keating: The Service of Accountability

“Accountability used as a tool to force compliance with ‘orders’ results in the bare minimum being accomplished. Accountability used as an opportunity to excel results in extraordinary accomplishments.”

From Kate Nasser: Leaders, Inspire Future Resilience & Can-Do Attitudes with Happy Endings

“Leaders often ask me how to inspire future resilience and can-do attitudes. Many start thinking of this when tough times hit. Although it’s not too late to try, leaders have more success when they start doing it long before the tough times come.”

From LaRae Quy: 4 Effective and Easy Ways To Relieve Stress At Work

“Stress is a fact of life. Feeling stress is a choice. You have the ability to relieve your stress because your enemy is not external; stress is an inner battle and only you can decide how to control it.”

From Linda Fisher Thornton: Seeing Past Our Point of View

“Seeing and appreciating other ways of doing things is not just a nice-to-have ability. In a connected global society, it’s an essential skill. To achieve mutual benefit and collaboration, we will need to see the world from other perspectives that differ from our own, respect those perspectives, and work together toward shared goals. Leaders who don’t know how and don’t make the effort to change can be thought of as intentionally ‘unseeing’ important aspects of the context and their leadership responsibility.”

How I Select Posts for this Midweek Review

The five posts I select to share in my Midweek Review of the Independent Business Blogs are picked from a regular review of about sixty blogs I check daily and an additional twenty-five or so that I check occasionally. Here’s how I select the posts you see in this review.

They must be published within the previous week.

They must support the purpose of the blog: to help leaders at all levels do a better job and lead a better life.

They must be from an independent business blog.

As a general rule, I only select posts that stand on their own, no selections from a series.

Also as a general rule, I do not select posts that are either a book review or a book report.

I reserve the right to make exceptions to the above.

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